Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The works of John Hunter. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![As singular a circumstance as any respecting the swelling of the testicle is, that it does not always come on when the inflammation in the urethra is at the height. I think it oftener happens when the irri- tation in the urethra is going off, and sometimes even after it has en- tirely ceased, and when the patient conceives himself to be quite well. I may be allowed to remark, that swellings in the testicle in conse- quence of venereal irritation in the urethra subject it to a suspicion that every swelling of this part is venereal; but from what I have said of its nature when it arises from a venereal cause, which was, that it is owing to sympathy only, and from what I shall now say, that it is never af- fected with the venereal disease, either local or constitutional, as far as my observation goes, it is to be inferred that such suspicions are always ill founded. This, perhaps, is an inference to which few will subscribe3. I have known the gout produce a swelling in the testicle of the in- flammatory kind, and therefore similar to the sympathetic swelling from a venereal cause, having many of its characters. Injuries done to the testicle produce swellings ; but they are different from those above men- tioned, being more permanent, having the disease or cause in the part itself. Cancers and the scrofula produce swellings of the testicle; but these are generally slow in their progress, and not at all similar to those arising from an irritation in the urethra. §.11. Of the Swellings of the Glands from Sympathy. Since our knowledge of the manner in which substances get into the circulation, and our having learned that many substances, especially poisons, in their course to the circulation, irritate the absorbent glands to inflammation and tumefaction, we might naturally suppose such swellings, accompanying complaints in the urethra attended with a dis- charge, to be owing to the absorption of that matter, and therefore, if it be a venereal discharge, that they must also be venereal. But we must not be too hasty in drawing this conclusion, for we know that the glands will sometimes swell from an irritation at the origin of the lym- phatics, where no absorption could possibly have taken place. They often swell and become painful upon the commencement of inflamma- tion, before any suppuration has taken place, and subside upon the coming on of suppuration, because when the suppuration begins, the a [This assertion is contradicted by experience. There is an affection of the testicle which occurs so often in combination with venereal symptoms that it must be allowed to be a constitutional effect of the virus. It will be described hereafter among the se- condary symptoms of lues venerea,]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21996635_0002_0202.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
